YouTube Provides More Data for Its Content ID Partners
Deeper analytics on claimed videos could help media companies find new demographic and geographic segments for their releases.
YouTube announced recently that more than 1,000 networks and studios now use its content identification program, which allows them to claim videos that contain their intellectual property. Now it’s trying to make the system more useful by giving media owners detailed analytics on those claimed videos.
The new reporting capabilities come through an integration of Content ID with YouTube’s Insight reporting tools. Insight offers a range of data on who viewed a video, where they viewed it, and when. Video owners can also track engagement during a video — exposing metrics such as which sections of a clip were viewed repeatedly and which were skipped over.
As a result, YouTube believes networks and studios may gain insights into undiscovered demographic and geographic segments for their releases, and perhaps help them better allocate promotional budgets.
They may also use it as a focus group to discover clips and edited versions of their content that might have a greater impact than the official cut. These could be used to promote their long-form content.
“Media [partners] may find the segment uploaded by the user has more engagement,” said YouTube Product Manager Tracy Chan. “Users are very savvy. They will take a part they like and upload it.”
As an example of how content owners will use the data, YouTube noted that when Sony BMG gained access to Insight reporting for the now-famous “JK Wedding Entrance Dance video, featuring the tune “Forever” by its artist Chris Brown, it found the video was the eighth most watched video within the company’s uploads and all the uploads they’ve claimed.
The next natural step in the evolution of Content ID would be to integrate all copies of a single claimed video, allowing media companies to view an integrated report. While that capability is not yet available, it is in the company’s plans.
Another product manager, David King, said YouTube would like to offer different reporting lenses for a broad range of constituents. For instance, content managers tend to want detailed information about how a video was engaged with, whereas senior executives are likely to prefer a one-page report.
“In general there is appetite for a lot of different focal lengths on the data,” he said. “That is the direction we’re heading in.”
YouTube’s Content ID program has been embraced by more than 1,000 companies, who use it to remove or monetize their intellectual property on the site. According to Google, all major. U.S. broadcast networks, film studios, and record labels now use the system to know which of their programming has been uploaded to the site. They can opt either to remove that content or to claim a slice of the ad revenue it generates.
